Aftermath: Back Home
by Simbawriter82
Summary: When you are no longer the being you used to be, what will happen if you are ordered to return to the place of your birth which you avoided for so long? Would you know yourself how you would react?
1. Prologue

The rays of the summer sun were burning down on his back and his mouth was dry. At least his soles didn't hurt and his muscled never ached long, accelerated healing be blessed. His point of destination was coming into visual range and when its silhouette was clearly visible he stopped. Just standing there on the roadside, his tongue lolling at the side, he started to actually think for the first time that day.  
Why him? It had been his wish that he would never return to this cursed town, but wishes never come true, do they? And orders are orders. It was clear and simple: go in, investigate and negate the problem. If you cannot, come back and report. He had vowed to obey the orders given to him and he was ordered to return here. So there was nothing he could do except to set his hairy ass in motion again.

Not to come by any sort of transportation was his way of trying to cope with the situation at hand. He figured that the physical effort of being on the road for days would ensure that he was powered down to a sufficient degree – so he wouldn't have the energy anymore to go rampant when entering.  
This place contained too many painful memories for him, memories he didn't want to wake, and the being he was now – the being he had become – was nowhere near as good at beating down ones feelings as the one he was born as. The stronger emotions he now possessed – connected with the lower inhibitions of his kind – already caused his mind so much turmoil that he was hard pressed to keep it in (even in his exhausted state), using all his remaining mental strength not to scream out loud.  
But keeping it in he did, every minute of the way he made into town. His turmoil sending shivers down his new body instead. Luckily the up and down movements of his long-legged shape covered these shivers well.  
He focused more and more to keep calm, shutting down all unwelcome memories by simply focusing on the task ahead. By the time he had reached the town limit and entered the place of his birth he felt calm enough not to attract unwelcome attention with his actions.  
After a short time he reached the first sidewalks and decided to use them, to better "hide in open view", so to say.

From time to time someone noticed him, but he just trotted further along, not caring whether the people wondered what a collarless "dog" was doing around here, walking alone on the sidewalk during the middle of the day. After all if it was a dog that moved on the sidewalk, his owner must be around. Not that they didn't have other things in mind anyway.  
Some small part of him did wonder why nothing had happened yet to deal with the situation, as the council – what was left of it – must have already figured out what was going on here by now. But then again, their main experience in dealing with what they call – what he used to call – the supernatural was more or less limited to vampires. So if the reason he was sent here was not one of the walking dead (and he was dead sure of it, because otherwise he wouldn't have been sent), they might not be able to deal with it, not in time at least.


	2. Chapter 1

Since the town was small he figured that it wasn't too bad of an idea to simply walk through the area and hold his nose in several directions. While probably not the most fruitful approach, he had to scout the area for several factors anyway before he could begin an actual investigation. This way he figured that he might be lucky and simply run into the current problem and get it done before nightfall. Small chance to that happening he knew, but a guy could dream right? And since it was still bright daylight, running at top speed was out of question. In that case he could just as well use the time he had to take and explore the area.  
Albeit being more or less familiar to him from growing up here, back than he didn't had to walk on all fours, had different senses and a family to go to. Now he didn't have any place to stay and so he would have to sleep where the opportunity arose. It was rarely cold at this time of the year and his fur had brought him through chilling winter winds in the past - so he wasn't worried about temperature - but he still preferred a bed or a blanket over hard ground. He didn't have food either and since he was basically naked, of course no money. In the case of food this would mean either hunting or stealing. Sleep he would have to in a place relatively safe but close enough to the town's center so he could get anywhere fast enough if necessary. All in all it came down to looking at his "home" from a new angle and so "getting to know" this place was the logical thing to do in his eyes.

When scouting along the edge of town he spotted some white-tailed deer entering a small patch of forest. His stomach growled loudly at precisely that moment. Reflexively he charged for them and caught a young doe by the throat, breaking the neck with the power of his impact and slashing the throat with his teeth at the same time. He let go of the doe's neck and opened its belly near the beginning of the hint legs, the soft flesh putting up the least resistance there. His muzzle reached for the bowel and pulled it out, hastily chopping it with his molars and devouring it together with its contents as fast as possible. When he had gulped the rest of the bowel he reached for the liver, not bothering to pull it out completely, instead just ripping a huge chunk of it out. He placed the chunk before him, held it with its paws and began tearing it into smaller pieces before eating it. When finished with it he reached deeper within the deer's bowels and pulled the heart out, chopping and gulping it within seconds.  
When he had finished is belly was so full all he wanted to do was lay down and so he did. Resting his head on his forelegs, lying there on the edge of the forest, prick-eared, the afternoon sun keeping his back warm he let his mind go blank. Amazing what a bit of exercise and food could do to your soul, 'must be the endorphins' he thought.

He may have lain there by his kill for about half an hour when he got up again - feeling a slight weariness in his limbs - and decided to hide the carcass. He grabbed the body on one hint leg and pulled it into the forest. Albeit not big, this patch of green should serve well enough as a hiding place. After pulling it for a few feet into the bush his ears caught movements behind him. When watching back he saw the outline of two coyotes hiding in the bush behind him, obviously eager for him to leave. He did them the favor and visualized how they fell upon the carcass. By thinking about it, he realized that their den might not be too far away and if it was in this patch of green it could work as a potential resting place – if it was too small it just had to be widened. But he would choose such an opportunity only when none other was available.  
When he had passed the border of the forest and made a few feet into the direction of the town he noticed several shadows moving on the ground and when looking up spotted crows that descended upon the forest, no doubt looking for the same meal as the coyote pair.

Sneaking through backyards and licking some more blood from his muzzle he contemplated about his current situation. Coming to this town posing as a human had not been an option in his eyes. Arriving human would have allowed him to use the advantages that would have come with it – like a hotel. But he wanted to avoid being recognized at any cost. In his current form, nobody would even draw a connection to him and if he was honest to himself, it was now much easier for him to pass for dog than for human. If necessary it was still possible for him to play the part – for a time at least – but that was the same as lying or acting twenty-four-seven, it was doomed to fail in the end. All these new behaviors he no longer thought about had come to him so naturally over time that he now had to force himself to act the way a human would. But that would in every aspect have been the same as stopping to breathe; it could only work for so long. In the end he was always forced to do it by pure instinct; although "forced" might not have been the right word.  
In the months after his first transformation he had always felt as though these new instincts and mannerisms had forced themselves upon him, but in retrospective he realized that they had grown inside him over time. This way they had become such an integral part of his self that it was now very hard for him not to bare his teeth or even snarl when threatening someone. This put him always on edge when talking to humans, since he had to be careful with every move, every sentence. When an angry dog snarled it was normal, but an angry human doing the same thing – with exactly the same sounds a dog would – was borderline weird, to say at least. Not to mention the obvious signs of shapeshifting he did reflexively now: shifting his eyes to canine when happy, growing sharp fangs when threatening someone, letting fur grow when it was too cold or growing claws at the sign of battle. In practically any human dominated place he would attract attention immediately with such behavior. In this particular town here, doing something like that would be about as smart as a twelve pointer deer holding up a neon sign saying "Shoot me" during hunting season. So in his eyes running around all furred-up was the smartest thing to do when tackling the current situation.  
He set himself in motion again, at the same time reminding him that he would have to keep an even lower profile until he had the chance to get the rest of the deer's blood from his head. His stomach had obviously been stronger than his brain and so he hadn't thought about how he would look after burying his head deep into the intestines of his meal. There were some open water places around here.

Looked like he didn't need to run to any lake or stream around here, one of the backyards he was sneaking through had a full paddling pool in it and he was able to wash his head in the water and dry himself with one of the towels lying around. When he was done it occurred to him that it must have looked pretty funny from a third person perspective. A "dog" rubbing his head on a towel on the ground, getting all the read off, but probably adding some green to his fur.  
The rest of the day was more or less fruitless when it came to the main reason of him being here. He found some hiding places here and there (mostly in some back yards and once behind a small grocery store) but nothing that could help him much.  
However, one thing had struck him as weird: he had known several streets and buildings since childhood, but he couldn't remember their names.


	3. Chapter 2

**Ok, no matter what I do, I simply couldn't find a way to make this chapter better without revealing too much so soon. Please review and any suggestions for improvement are welcome.**

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Searching through town, his nose always close to the ground had taken off his mind from the issue of not knowing a few street names anymore. He guessed that they had never been important enough to remember. And the important buildings he had come across so far he recognized when he saw them.

When he reached Town Square the sun was about to go down and he stopped his sniffing around to sit down near a brown bench, intending to rest for a while. While doing so a restaurant in the opposite direction of him caught his attention. He still remembered that place – the Mystic Grill - and he guessed that hiding in the shadows of the garbage cans behind it would be suitable for a short nap later on. The Police Station was right next to it and so he would be in a good position if something happened.  
Lying on mown grass was different than the wild weeds earlier at the forest edge and the ground here was more even. People walked by and, apart from the random preschooler now and then, paid him no attention. He could simply let his mind relax and go through what he had found during his first scouting trip.  
In the case of food it seemed as though hunting would be the best option that had presented itself so far, if he had to stay for a longer period of time. Stealing would only be an option once or twice per month; the few stores in town would quickly notice and report if anything was stolen. Sneaking into houses would be no problem, but a free-roaming dog sneaking or possibly breaking into people's homes time and again would eventually attract too much attention. So if he didn't want to hunt all the time he could only afford stealing for about four times per month, and only in the first month. Should he be forced to stay longer he would have to think of some kind of pattern that would let it look like as though the burglar was a homeless human and not a mere dog.  
Sleeping was another topic. His assessment had proven correct and his fur would be enough to protect him from lower temperatures – if there would be any considered the Virginia heat - but apart from that he would mostly have to sleep under the open sky if he wanted to stay directly in town. There were no tool sheds so far that were suitable and many dens he would have to dig for himself first and only a few back-yards had enough bush to hide a den of the suitable size for him. The most comfortable option he had found was an abandoned brick building at the end of a parkway a little outside of town. His feet could carry him easily to town and back in the matter of minutes – since the road was deserted he was able to test that theory - and nobody would bother him there, no matter the form he was wearing. He had some hazy collections of a woman living there but he was sure that he didn't know her, if it had been her who had lived there in the first place. He didn't know and he honestly didn't care. The actual problem was that while the building was more than suitable it was too far from town to be of any use for him should the culprit strike again. As good as his hearing was it wasn't that good. Sleeping where he had grown up was out of question for him since he had no desire to see that place. While having come near it, he had foregone that place and the immediate area - out of fear what being their might evoke in him – trusting that his nose would give him all he needed.  
In the case of the hiding place of his target he still had no clue as to where it actually could be. His nose never registered any unusual scent so chances were good that it didn't hide at any place he had already visited. But then, so far he had only scouted about half of the town. The small chance that he could be hiding in the one place he wanted to avoid, he had regarded as irrelevant immediately. Nonetheless no place he remembered came to his mind of which he could be sure his target would be hiding there. The hospital was of course out of question. If his assessment of his target's kind was correct a hospital would prove to be a very good hiding place for a vampire, but for the attacker hiding there would be impossible. He or she would have been detected pretty soon and the only real outcome would be mass-slaughter and therefore the culprit would only be there if interested in committing such a heinous act. But if it – he had finally decided to stay with it – would be interested in such a thing it would have committed such an act already. And since business in town seemed to go on as usual there was no evidence in his eyes for anything in that direction. He remembered that there were caves around the area near the waterfall but they wouldn't necessarily be anybodies first choice and the city council would have probably initiated a search of that place.  
He heard the sounds of shoes on the sidewalk coming closer. They were rather slow and cautious, nearly as though someone tried to sneak up on him. He turned his head in the direction of the sounds and spotted a deputy approaching him, obviously thinking of him as an escaped pet. He wasted no time and sprinted away; as slowly as necessary. It crossed his mind to get a dog-collar from somewhere.

Walking down another rather average looking alley became slightly boring, there was nothing special or worth remembering. His nose didn't detect anything, but his eyes shortly registered the slight bright blue line of the horizon that could be seen over the houses and trees.  
With sunset being over and dusk starting, a part of him actually expecting to see vampires coming out of one of the houses. To expect this was nonsense of course since his fine nose would have already told him if any of them would be in town. Their terrible foul stench – he still had trouble describing it but guessed that the description coming closest to it would be rotten eggs mixed with fresh pig-dung - could never be confused with anything else on this planet so his sense of smell would definitely have noticed it by now. The thought brought up the hazy image of a girl in his mind, but it was only fleeting, nothing that awoke his concern or was any reason to dwell on it. It was gone as fast as it had appeared and so he brought his attention back to his earlier considerations. He thought of it as strange to expect such a thing to happen when it was clear that it wouldn't.  
He stopped in his tracks, eyes looking into nowhere and his tail hanging limp. Was it because that was how it had all started for him? But that wouldn't make sense, wouldn't it? After all his life had been completely normal before that element had come into play so why would he want to see it? Before it all he had known the rules of his life, he knew how things worked, who he was. But after that everything had gone downhill for him. His life had become a chaos, he no longer knew right from wrong, didn't know who to trust. He had been lied to, manipulated, his memories erased and he had lost the people he loved most. Before all this his life had been good.  
Something struck inside his mind at that moment, like a light slap on the head – a sensation that awoke some other, a bit more funny memories. Shaking his head he realized that he was wrong, very wrong indeed. His life hadn't exactly been normal before and he already had experienced the pain of loss; he just didn't know about the supernatural aspect. And that would have changed eventually. His ancestors already had to deal with the walking dead and the threads of his own destiny were ensnared in it long before he or even his parents were born. The question had never been if he would have been drawn into this world, it was only when, as he would have had to deal with it all eventually.  
Soon after the first vampire eradication it was theorized that the vampires hadn't disappeared forever and would return someday. Well that theory turned out to be right, albeit it took the council of the town quite a long time to figure that out. There had been what he might have called battles back then. He scoffed in his mind at his folly, those had not been battles. He had not seen battle back in those times, but he had seen it in the years past. He knew the difference now and had long realized that the 'battles' of those past days had been minor skirmishes, at most. And still he wondered how he had actually survived those days. Based on what he knew now it was a surprise to him that none of their enemies had simply killed them so far. Really what was it that would have really held them back? One Molotov cocktail would have been enough, just one at the right place at the right time. And looking back he estimated that there would have been plenty of opportunities. So why was he still alive?  
He shook his head to get those questions out. He needed to stay focused and finish his task as fast as possible and therefore set himself in motion again.  
There was no point in dwelling on these questions anyway now. Those days, when there were a few vampires in this town – unnoticed by most humans – were over. Gone; vanished from this part of the earth. The last resident vampires of this area had been defeated by their own kind and the victors had left forever. Chances were that they were all gone for good. He had caught the scent of some on his way to here while passing through a smaller settlement and he guessed that there were some of the corpses in other places not too far from here, but none were here right now. Whether they were absent of their own accord or the reason he had come here had dealt with any undead he couldn't tell, well he didn't care actually. What really counted in his book was that now the townsfolk had none of the walking dead among them. The lucky bastards!  
His current form didn't allow sighing and he had to concentrate not to shift while walking out in the open so he commented these thoughts with silence and the scraping and clicking of his claws on the sidewalk.

He noticed that he had arrived at the local football field near the high school, at exactly the spot were usually the cars stood. He stopped and had a quick look-around drawing in the air and scents of the place. There were no scents here that held anything of interest for him and so he wanted to move along as fast as possible.  
After making the first step his eyes caught a small glimmer near his paws. He looked down to see a piece of glass lying in the trimmed grass. Judging by the way it was bent and the visible creasing it had once been part of a liquor bottle.  
Looking at this broken piece a memory emerged in his head. It was a bit out of focus and hazy but he remembered that he had once picked up a fight here. He could feel some of the punches, the rolling over the grass. And there was glass in it as well, used as a weapon he thought. The memories mixed with the smell of alcohol. Had he been drunk back then, or had it been his opponent? He dimly remembered a female voice as a part of the scenario, but right now he was unable to recognize that one.  
And then there was the face of his opponent. It was blurry but he could make out brown hair. He tried to concentrate, standing completely motionless and breathing regularly. It came more and more into focus until – after minutes – it was clear for him to see. He pulled back his flews, revealing his front teeth and large canines. The image was as good as fresh now. Too late did he realize his mistake; he felt pain rise in his chest. He cringed and took a step backward - his body bent in fear, tail between his legs - as if from a frightening opponent. His nose was stopped up and he had trouble breathing. It was one of the faces he never wanted to see again. The face was connected with too many other memories. And it wasn't memories of simple brawl. They stabbed his soul like a jagged knife. They came flowing from the depths of his mind. He smelled the blood again and saw the motionless body of the person most dear to him. Everything he had felt and experienced during these worst times of his life came crushing down on him. All of it: the screams, the pain, the insanity, the rage and fear. He saw funerals, dead bodies of friends and strangers, often mangled and torn apart. His mind, unable to shovel them back to where they came from, lived through each of them again and again, opening old wounds that his soul hadn't been able to fully heal yet. The only relief was that this hurricane inside him was so fast that the memories had started to get so hazy again, they had nearly become a single blur so he luckily couldn't make out too many details.  
But his body couldn't be hold back either. At first it was only shivering, similar to when his body was very cold, then it became the sort of unstable standing a canine had when it couldn't really carry his own body anymore, with its hint legs being much lower than his front legs. This lasted only a few minutes until he raised his head and emitted a bloodcurdling keening sound. Then he started yelping horribly in all directions, his legs buried into the ground, stiff as a board. The sounds of his agony echoed through the night, bouncing of walls and trees, only to be brought back to his ears. He went on and on, letting the sounds come out and carry on as long as his inner torment demanded. He only stopped when through all the yelps and howls he noticed that all around him in the distance lights were going on. He turned on his heels and was gone in an instant.


	4. Chapter 3

**Ok, this chapter is really short, but I figured that the size is just right for it. This might also be the last one for some time. Considered the change of background in the show I might have to "recalculate". But for any readers I can say, don't worry I still have my one-shots and short stories and a few planned scenes from this story will appear there as well.**

**As always: Please review and suggestions are welcome.**

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The sun was about to rise and paint everything in decided that the place behind the Grill he had seen earlier would be sufficient as a place to sleep for a few hours. And sleep was what he needed so everything that happened, he realized that he hadn't really slept for about two days now, the short rests that he had taken were not sufficient. The additional stress of searching the night over and the assault of unwanted memories had left him a mess. He had only been back half a day. Half a day, and his limbs already felt like stone – he slightly wobbled actually – and the eye-lids started to get heavy. In his mind he already considered to leave and let it be but he just couldn't do it. He was all sorts of things but he was no coward and no oath-breaker. He would have to get through this no matter what. And to go through it he would need sleep now, if his transition into this new life had taught him anything than it was that the basic needs must be his memory served him correctly, he had been at the Grill regularly, more or less. Images of barkeepers and pool tables came to his mind, some of them quite pleasant, but since they had nothing to do with him being here, and since he didn't want to risk waking other, more unpleasant, memories again he pushed them away by focusing on where the sheriff's office was in the Police Station.

While he crossed the square to get to the restaurant, he caught his reflection in the window of a nearby barber shop, one he didn't remember being there. He approached the glass and took a short time to look at anybody would have told him, before all this happened, that one day he would stand on all fours in this slender furred shape, with bright robin's egg blue eyes, a bushy tail and this long muzzle, he would have called them nuts. After all, how could that be possible, right? And yet, here he was now, standing in front of a barbershop looking at himself in the window. The reflection looking back bore practically no resemblance to the boy he once had been. This body was new and he belonged to a different species now, human he was no more. But was that really that there was to it? Sometimes he wondered about the state of his soul. This addition of canine instincts to his mind had been obvious but was that were it had ended? He had been told by new friends that the thing he called a soul was now very different from the one he once possessed, different on a basic level. He never believed that, but sometimes doubts crept into his sun had started to appear behind the horizon and bathed his body in the first rays of her light, throwing him in sharper relief. Seeing himself now, he remembered the last time he saw this reflection of him. Back then the few brown highlights he had on his neck and shoulder blades were dark from dried blood and dirt, just like his sandy-white paws and the white fur on his long muzzle around the flews, only the two white patches on his head - one over each eye - had remained clean as always. The rest of his pelt had always been black – currently it was rather ruffled up instead of being more or less smooth - and so it didn't make much of a . The smell and taste of blood was an experience he had many times over the last few years. Killing had become very easy to him it seemed, too easy maybe? There had been a time when the site of death and blood had made him shiver and agonized; now it seemed as though he couldn't care less sometimes. He hadn't thought about it for months and now the return to this place had brought it up again: how much of the person he was had been able to survive in this new life of his?

The sun had almost risen during his contemplation and his ears registered the first sounds of the fully awakening town. He left his mirror image and headed to his selected hiding place. When he arrived there he pushed one of the cans a few inches away and another one about a foot so they would cover him from sight of others. His eyelids were heavy now and he really started to feel like curled into a ball and lay down in the shadows of the cans and the wall, trusting that his pelt was dark enough to hide him and that the white parts of his pelt wouldn't give him away. Not that he had to care much about it - he was just tired - the cans wouldn't be filled before noon and so there would barely be any disturbance. No one would take him for anything but a dog anyway he thought before his eyelids got too heavy. He got lucky, his sleep was dreamless.


End file.
